Admittedly I don’t keep a real blog here, but I will take some time to summarize updates today.

I’m back to full time work and now offering a variety of virtual services along with in person consultation. Initial doula and midwifery consults, herbal consultation, and lactation counseling can now be scheduled through Calendly and done over Zoom.

As of now I still have a few openings for Doula and Midwifery clients, but the calendar is filling up. Don’t wait to inquire, even if you aren’t sure what you need yet. I take a limited amount of due dates per month to ensure that everyone gets the highest quality care. You can use the contact form on the website or email me directly at highlandbirth@gmail.com

The Milk Minute Podcast is still going strong! Heather ONeal and I are releasing weekly episodes to continue making breastfeeding education free and accessible. If you’d like to support this project you can do so on Patreon. We appreciate your support so we can continue to support more people!

This year I decided to say ‘Yes’ to more opportunities. I was recently interviewed for an article in Rolling Stone, yes the Rolling Stone! I have also been interviewed for several podcasts, with episodes looking to air soon. You can find me soon on The Bonjour Baby Podcast, Womb Wisdom, The New Little Life Podcast, and more!

I’m looking forward to trying new things this year and diversifying my business to make things more sustainable for me and my family.

As the year ends and the holiday craze begins to creep in, I thought I would take a moment to reflect on the year.

This year I’ve focused on raising my new baby and bringing up my Podcast to a new level. I even got us on TikTok!

Homebirth midwifery takes up a lot of my time, effort, and emotional work so I’ve stepped back from that in order to be more present with my kids for a bit. No, I’m not leaving it! However for the longevity of this business and my ability to help my community, taking a lighter work load has been absolutely key.

Your health matters, and so does mine! I really look forward to a time when I can take a full client load again, because I love being able to help families make their best birthing choices and to support them in maintaining a safe pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.

For now if you need me, but weren’t able to book me for your birth, you can find me through my podcast or through private consultation. Even if I can’t attend your birth, I am so happy to sit with you and help you navigate the choices ahead.

So please feel free to reach out with questions, birth inquiries, whatever. I look forward to continuing to build connections here, supporting you in community medicine and accessible care.

Here’s to surviving the holidays, and to the coming year!

I wanted to finally get back to my blog to tell you about my second homebirth.

My first birth was in 2015, at our remote home in the mountains. Since then I’ve become a doula, lactation professional, herbalist, and midwife. I’ve also aged nearly 6 years. To be honest, my pregnancy sucked. I hated almost every minute of it. It was unplanned, I was out of shape and definitely depleted of mineral and nutrient stores. My diet sucked. I was super behind on sleep.

Clearly a great time to make a baby.

Anyway, I survived mild hyperemesis and thyroid issues. I survived the aches and pains and sleepless nights. And thank goodness is finally fucking over.

One of the few highlights of my pregnancy was getting professional photos done. I was 41 weeks pregnant (a day before birthing!) and I decided just to have some fun. It was glorious and I highly recommend it. Even if you’re fat, even if you have a B belly and an apron belly, even if you have stretch marks and its just hard to think about.

Anyway, look at this amazing photo Marlyn took! You can find her stuff here: Marlyn Photographs

So down to the business of birth.

A lot of people have asked me what its like to birth now that I know so much. It’s not that different. It’s just like normal birth, except now I have an annoying voice in the back of my head going, ‘Well it is transition, what did you expect?’

This time I knew that I would hate it (yes I do not enjoy birthing), but that it certainly would end. During my first birth I kept getting stuck in the mental loop that it would never end, I was going to die, and everything would be horrible forever. This time was different, it was more like, ‘I hate this, I sort of want to die, and it’s definitely going to end very soon so I need to push through it.’

Maybe you’ve caught on that I don’t glorify birth here, I’m not a flower and rainbow and positive thoughts midwife. Yes I love birth affirmations and calm, peaceful births. I also love the births when people scream and rage and get mad about it. They’re all valid and amazing, and the way that you act during your labor and birth doesn’t dictate any value on it. Regardless of what you sound like, how your birth goes, or what you think about it after – you did an amazing thing.

Back to my story.

This time I knew it was best to just ignore things until I couldn’t. I didn’t change my plans, even though we had friends coming over to pick up turkeys I had wrangled for them the day before. I figured they wouldn’t mind being kicked off the farm abruptly if I happened to have a baby, and so my thoughts went at 6am when a few haphazard contractions woke me up. I timed them for an hour and decided to get up. They stopped when I began moving, so I brushed them off as early work or practice contractions and began my day.

Our friends came, the neighbors came, we hung around and watched turkey wrangling. I kept having completely random contractions; sometimes they hurt, sometimes they didn’t and so I ignored them. Why time something that would only give me anxiety?

I kept in touch with my midwifery team via text. They were anxious to head over as neither live closer than an hour and a half, and second babies tend to rush into the world. I kept saying no.

In the afternoon people’s voices and presence began to irritate me. I banished my family and friends to the river, save on friend who had already discussed attending the birth with me. We hung out on our newly built back porch while I lounged in our hillbilly hottub. I began to vocalize a little through some painful contractions, that were just starting to come together into something. Sometime close to 5:00PM we called the midwifery team, the birth photographer, and told the family to come back from the river. Apparently around this time the neighbors heard some noise and thought “its time!”, they had just had a baby a month prior and we were very excited to all be birthing.

After that it begins to blur together, the way that births do. I remember people quietly showing up, popping their heads onto the porch, and disappearing again. My son came to give me a kiss and disappeared upstairs with my friend. My husband bustled around inside trying to cook and clean and set up the birth pool. My photographer quietly observed around the edges of things. My dogs came for snuggles and then retreated as I got louder. My midwife and assistant checked in a few times, rubbed my back and head and listened to baby.

Then transition hit. It was really getting dark, and while the back porch was lovely I needed to go inside (I experienced the same urge during my first labor). I yelled and flailed and hated all of it. Feeling your bones move like that just sucks. For about 20 minutes I raged about the pool not being full enough, then I hopped in as soon as it was barely ready and began to push. In a few pushes her head was out, but she wasn’t coming further. My instincts told me to move a leg up, and she popped out. I unwrapped her nuchal cord underwater, and brought her up to my chest as my support team helped me sit back off my knees.

Lyra Phoenix was born at 8:50PM, April 11th 2021.

She was a perfect 6lbs 8oz, with a full head of hair.

My immediate postpartum was a wonderful haze of laughter and tears. My son came down and told me his sister was beautiful, ‘like a diamond in the sky’. He was enamored, as were we all.

PS: you can also have some amazing birth photographs if you hire Jenna! You can find her work here at Jenna L Richman Photography

Hey Folks!

As usual whatever promise I made about regular blog posts fell through, I really do need to work on that…

But in other news I got my Etsy shop back off the ground, renovated into my art selling space. So, head on over to the Wandering Womb to check out the pieces I have for sale.

Currently its all digital downloads while I work out the kinks of producing or purchasing beautiful prints. In the meantime I’ve posted the pixels and dpi rating for each image so you know how large you will be able to print it. If there is something you want that you cant find, send me an email or a message and ask! I’m open for commissions.